Michigan Democratic lawmakers want mass transit between Grand Rapids, Detroit and Ann Arbor but don’t know how to pay for it.
State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, majority caucus chair & Education Committee chair, posted on social media that mass transit would prevent young people from leaving the state.
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Democrats in the Minnesota House of Representatives advanced two gun control bills on Thursday that have Republicans, gun groups, and private citizens concerned.
HF 4300, authored by Rep. Jamie Becker-Finn, D-Roseville, would set new laws for how firearms must be stored. Under the proposed law, gun owners must either leave their firearms unloaded with a locking device, or store their firearms in a legitimate “firearm storage unit” such as a safe. Citizens who fail to do so will face legal consequences ranging from misdemeanors to felonies depending on the offense.
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by Carly Moran Michigan plans to send $219 million in tax credits back to taxpayers over the next few weeks, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently announced. Whitmer said a supplemental Working Families Tax Credit will be sent to Michigan families who already received a 2022 tax year Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit for Working Families. The checks should arrive over the next few weeks. Once sent, qualified Michigan households will have received an average of $550 each, totaling more than $219 million statewide. “With the Working Families Tax Credit check now making its way into the mailboxes of Michiganders, many families will feel a great sense of relief,” Whitmer said. The Michigan Earned Income Tax Credit is a tax benefit for those below a certain income level. Since 2022, it represents a 30% match of the federal income tax credit. “My team is working hard to ensure that 700,000 Michigan households receive their supplemental checks while simultaneously processing tax returns,” State Treasurer Rachael Eubanks said. “These checks are being sent in batches due to seasonal mailing demands. We anticipate this mailing will be completed in the next few weeks and ask eligible taxpayers to be patient as we work as…
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Wisconsin’s Republican U.S. Senator says he’s not looking to become the next Republican leader, but he’s not ruling it out either.
Sen. Ron Johnson told News Talk 1130 WISN’s Jay Weber he is focused right now on organizing the search for someone to replace Mitch McConnell when McConnell leaves Senate leadership in November.
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A Green Bay, Wisconsin school superintendent resigned on Tuesday after he was captured on a hot mic describing the district as “lily” white and expressing his displeasure at working in a “white district” during an appearance on WAOK-AM as he visited Atlanta to recruit educators.
Former Green Bay Area Public School District (GBAPS) Superintendent Claude Tiller Jr.’s hot mic comments were broadcast on YouTube while the radio station broadcast was on a commercial break.
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Expansion in the way Wisconsin prepares new teachers has passed the state Assembly and awaits a decision from second-term Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
His decision has yet to be signaled.
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The Osseo school board voted Tuesday to leave a sexually explicit graphic novel in the Maple Grove High School library.
“It does have the potential, as a parent mentioned earlier, to help some students,” board member Thomas Brooks said while explaining why he would be voting to leave the book on the shelves.
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The White House and Biden 2024 reelection campaign are concerned that President Joe Biden is hemorrhaging support from voters in Arab and Muslim communities in Michigan amid his support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, Politico reported Tuesday.
Biden has publicly backed Israel’s war effort against Hamas even as many of his supporters and voters demand he call for a ceasefire in favor of protecting the Palestinian population in Gaza. Multiple uncommitted voter campaigns have sprung up against Biden as he continues to lose support from Arab and Muslim communities threatening not to back him in the state’s Tuesday primaries, according to Politico.
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It’s not often a mid-morning interview starts with such a stern warning.
“Didn’t you tell her to be careful?” Jon Loidolt asked.
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The charges against accused pedophile Adam Westbrook, an alleged member of a Wisconsin chapter of the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence,” reveal that the victim—a prepubescent little boy—is his own adopted son.
Westbrook is facing charges of possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a child, four counts each. The case was dismissed at the state level in a procedural move that transfers it to the U.S. Attorney-Western District of Wisconsin Office as a federal crime.
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Days before Tuesday’s primary election, more than 700,000 Michiganders have already cast a ballot thanks to new voting laws.
More than 18,000 votes were cast in the first three days of in-person early voting statewide over the holiday weekend.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from Sidney Powell, a lawyer aligned with former President Donald Trump who challenged the 2020 presidential election results in Michigan.
The nation’s top court included no comment with the Tuesday rejection.
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A disabled Minnesota Army combat veteran is fighting a new battle — one he never signed up for after he says the COVID vaccine destroyed the life he once knew.
Drew told his story on Liz Collin Reports this week. He doesn’t like to use his last name publicly but readers can follow his story on social media.
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Republican businessman Eric Hovde launched his highly anticipated campaign against Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on Tuesday.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) recruited Hovde, who had been weighing a campaign for months, after other prominent Republicans like Reps. Mike Gallagher and Tom Tiffany declined to jump into the race. Hovde announced his campaign in a social media video posted on X, and called for the country to unite to “find common sense solutions to restore America.”
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Parents Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against Burnsville High School in Minnesota based on race and national origin in programs that receive federal financial assistance.
Burnsville High School offers programming to affinity groups only open to some students.
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Wisconsin’s assembly speaker is not calling his proposal for medical marijuana dead, but he says it’s not going to happen this year.
Speaker Robin Vos told reporters Thursday there are too many different views of marijuana to find a consensus on a strict-medical only plan.
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A voter-led petition seeks to repeal a Michigan law that allowed the state to seize local control of large-scale wind and solar projects.
The Michigan Farm Bureau and the Michigan Townships Association say Public Act 233 of 2023 strips local siting authority in 1,240 townships and gives it to the Michigan Public Service Commission – three people appointed by the governor.
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Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives wasted no time in the opening moments of the 2024 legislative session in attempting to fast-track passage of a seemingly bipartisan proposal to fix a new law enacted last year that has hampered the work of school resource officers in several public schools across the state.
But the author of that bill ended up being the GOP’s biggest stumbling block in attempting to pass it on the House floor Monday.
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Wisconsin’s election managers say as long as there is a house number and a street name, absentee voting witness slips don’t need a city, the state, a zip code or anything else.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission clarified the rule for absentee ballot witnesses address information.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer says the proposed 2025 budget wouldn’t raise taxes but it would dump a 1,200% increase in trash fees onto local taxpayers.
The budget aims to raise the landfill tipping fee rate for state landfills from 36 cents to $5 per ton – a 1,288% increase.
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Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden are locked in a tight race to claim Wisconsin, should both become their respective parties’ nominees in the 2024 White House race.
The pair earned 49% each in a recent Marquette Law School Poll of registered voters, when undecided respondents were asked to choose. Trump held a narrow edge of 50% to 49% among likely voters. Among independent registered voters, Biden led Trump 49% to 42%.
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Republicans are calling for an investigation into allegations that Gov. Tim Walz’s Department of Education “engaged in deceptive practices” in order to conceal records in a lawsuit related to the Feeding Our Future case.
Aimee Bock, the founder and executive director of the defunct nonprofit, claimed in a court filing last month that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) “intentionally deleted and hid documents from discovery” when her organization sued MDE in November 2020.
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The Wisconsin Elections Commission has complied with court orders and will now tell the over 1,800 local election clerks they can accept absentee ballots that are missing parts of a witness address.
The commission made the move after members voted 5-1 Thursday.
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Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s 2025 budget includes $5 million for a car repair program.
The program would fund vehicle repairs, purchases and other services to obtain and retain employment not to exceed $2,000 in the past year – the same cap as last year’s budget but more than double from the $900 cap in the year prior.
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A lawsuit in the Ramsey County Second Judicial Court claims Minnesota Department of Education employees “deleted large amounts of data and intentionally engaged in deceptive practices.”
The education agency sued nonprofit Feeding Our Future over a scheme from May 2020 through January 2022 in which three entities – ThinkTechAct Foundation, Empire Cuisine & Market and Empire Enterprises – collaborated to steal $250 million of Federal Child Nutrition Program money meant to feed hungry children and instead spent it on luxury cars, homes, and more.
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Western Wisconsin’s congressman wants the governor to help with the planned hospital closures in the Chippewa Valley.
Republican Congressman Derrick Van Orden asked Gov. Tony Evers to use any state or federal resources that can be tapped to make sure the people who use HSHS’ hospitals or Prevea’s clinics in and around Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls are not left without medical care.
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The mother of a shooter who killed four students at a high school in Oxford, Mich., in 2021 was found guilty Tuesday on all charges of involuntary manslaughter.
Jennifer Crumbley, 45, had pleaded not guilty to four involuntary manslaughter counts, and the jury found her guilty after 10 hours of deliberation, per CNN.
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Michigan Senate Republicans on Thursday announced their plan to improve childhood learning and support teachers in the K-12 schools.
They proposed a MI Brighter Future plan they said would help students gain access to additional resources and learning opportunities, require proven training methods for educators, give parents more control over their child’s progress, reinstate accountability in teacher evaluations and provide for performance-based bonuses.
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Children’s Minnesota is displaying a “pronoun galaxy” at the entrance of its Minneapolis hospital, according to images provided to Alpha News.
“At Children’s Minnesota, you’re a star,” the display reads. Each star on the display includes different pronouns like “she/her,” “they/them,” and “he/his.”
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Experts hired by Wisconsin’s supreme court to redraw the state’s political maps say there won’t be anymore Republican gerrymandering.
The court’s outside experts rejected maps drawn by Republican lawmakers and the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. The experts said both maps continued to gerrymander the state for Republicans.
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Democratic legislator Andy Smith was widely criticized for his reaction to the news that three conservative organizations may have been the victims of arson — so much so that he almost immediately deleted his Twitter account.
A Golden Valley building that houses the Center of the American Experiment, TakeCharge, and the Upper Midwest Law Center caught fire early Sunday morning. The ATF confirmed with Alpha News that federal and local agencies are conducting an “arson investigation” into the fire.
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Even though he is still recovering from a near-fatal stabbing, former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is seeking legal help while confined to solitary medical confinement in a federal prison facility.
“There was no question he was trying to kill him. It was more serious than anyone knew,” Carolyn Pawlenty said of the violent attack on her son in the prison law library at the facility in Tucson, Ariz., on Nov. 24, 2023.
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A letter urges an investigation into suppliers of a Ford electric vehicle plant in Marshall, Michigan.
Republican U.S. Reps. Mike Gallagher, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Select Committee on the CCP, and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, signed the letter.
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Act 10, the law that fundamentally weakened Wisconsin’s public school teachers’ unions, is headed back to court. And again there is an effort to save it.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on Monday filed a motion to join the new case that seeks to end Act 10. That case claims there was “no conceivable rational basis” for Act 10 to begin with.
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A Northern Minnesota farmer claims his race and sex placed him at the back of the line to receive a $15,000 grant for aspiring farmers to buy farmland.
The case is Lance Nistler v. Walz, et al., filed in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota with pro-bono help from the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation.
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed expanding the Michigan government by at least new five programs costing an unknown amount.
In a video talking to a potato, Whitmer proposed that taxpayers fund two years of community college for all high school graduates.
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The threat of losing federal funding or defending against an expensive lawsuit, for allegedly promoting discrimination against popular punching bags on campus, isn’t dissuading the University of Wisconsin Law School from inculcating students in the dogma of diversity, equity and inclusion.
UW Law required first-year students to participate in a “reorientation” Friday that catechized the same ideologies that prompted doctor and House Appropriations Committee member Rep. Andy Harris to float federal funding cuts to medical schools that force DEI upon students.
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The Minnesota Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a new law that automatically restores voting rights to people convicted of a felony who are still on parole, probation, or supervised release in the state.
On March 3, 2023, Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed House File 28 into law. Previously in Minnesota, the state restored voting rights to people convicted of a felony after they completed all aspects of their sentence, including parole or probation. The new law restored voting rights to these individuals upon completion of incarceration, regardless of other conditions of their sentence.
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Michigan’s Growing Together Council was funded partly by private groups – a detail omitted in the final report which one lawmaker called an “abuse of the pubic trust.”
State Rep. John Roth, R-Interlochen, told The Center Square in an email Republican concerns continue to grow.
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The latest report on school choice in Wisconsin again shows choice schools outperform public schools in Milwaukee’s biggest cities and rural areas.
The Apples to Apples report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty compares proficiency rates in math and English language arts in public schools, charter schools and private schools part of Wisconsin’s voucher program.
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Wisconsin Republicans introduced a bill Friday that would ban abortion at 14 weeks, just months ahead of the 2024 presidential primary.
The bill would limit abortions in the state by an additional six weeks since Wisconsin already has a 20-week ban on the books, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. In addition to passing the legislature and getting Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ signature, the bill would also have to appear on the ballot for voters during the state’s primary election in April, which is just months before the presidential election in November.
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The latest version of a Parental Bill of Rights has cleared its first major hurdle at the Wisconsin Capitol, but it’s not expected to get much further.
The State Assembly on Thursday approved AB 510, which spells out the rights that parents in the state have over their own children.
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Democratic members of Congress criticized presidential candidate Dean Phillips after he removed the word “diversity” from his campaign website.
Phillips’ website renamed a section titled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” to “Equity & Restorative Justice” on Tuesday, according to Politico. The move drew criticism from fellow Democrats, with one arguing he had been influenced by a $1 million donation from billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.
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Former Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash said Thursday that he is considering running for Senate in 2024.
“Today I’m launching the Justin Amash for Senate Exploratory Committee as I consider entering the race,” Amash wrote on the social media platform, X, on which he cites himself as a libertarian.
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Justice G. Barry Anderson, the lone remaining Republican appointee on the Minnesota Supreme Court, announced his retirement last week after serving nearly 20 years as one of the state’s top judges.
Anderson notified Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday of his decision to step down from the court on May 10. Anderson turns 70 in October, the age of mandatory retirement that’s required by Minnesota statute.
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A reform group in Wisconsin wants to take what works for plumbers and get it to work for teachers.
The Institute for Reforming Government has been working since last spring to create teacher apprenticeships in the state.
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School districts in Detroit, Lansing and Pontiac will each receive $5.9 million in federal funding to buy 15 clean-powered school buses apiece.
The funding flows from President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s Clean School Bus Program grants.
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A Michigan couple has sued Brooks Township for refusing to allow them to open a cemetery on private land.
Peter and Annica Quakenbush filed a lawsuit against Brooks Township in Newaygo County, challenging its blanket ban on opening any new cemeteries.
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On a Twin Cities radio show earlier this week, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz dismissed Republican efforts to keep Minnesota’s current state flag.
“Minnesota is a diverse state, it continues to grow. This flag was crafted in the 1890s,” said Gov. Walz regarding Minnesota’s current flag. “It’s highly offensive to a large number of people, and there’s very little debate about that.”
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Wisconsin’s Supreme Court will not reconsider its ruling that tossed out the state’s political maps.
The new liberal-majority court ruled 4-3 against a request from Republican lawmakers to listen to arguments again.
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